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This work develops a new methodological process that attempts to test the contingent and universalistic arguments regarding the influence of human resources management on firm performance. Using moderator regression analysis, we analyze how economic results associated with a policy of human resources management committed to employees depend on the strategic profile adopted by the company. The results obtained support the contingent proposition, since competitive strategy moderates both the intensity and the direction of this effect. In addition, it is shown that commitment management is especially beneficial when a cost focus strategy is adopted.

The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between management’s commitment and effective occupational safety and health committees (OSHCs), which are a form of representative employee involvement in Malaysia.

Using data from a survey of 231 manufacturing companies in Malaysia, the study empirically examines both passive and active management commitment and its relationships with the perceived effectiveness of OSHCs.

Respondents to the survey, who were members of OSHCs, felt that both passive and active management commitments had significant, positive relationships with OSHCs’ perceived effectiveness, with active management commitment having a stronger relationship with the dependent variable – the effectiveness of OSHCs. All three variables were perceived to be at the medium level, with active management commitment recording the lowest mean value.

The research is limited by the fact that it is cross-sectional. However, this allows its findings to be placed in the context of past research, underpinned by Malaysia’s manufacturing sector and legislative framework.

This paper provides suggestions for how the perceived effectiveness of OSHCs can be improved in the Malaysian context.

This study conceptualises management’s commitment in terms of passive and active commitment, given the context of the current legislative framework, and it addresses the relationships between both types of management commitment and the effectiveness of OSHCs, in the heretofore-unexamined Malaysian manufacturing context.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between top management commitment, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and green human resource management (GHRM).

A self-administered questionnaire was adopted to perform a systematic collection of data from manufacturing and service organisations in Malaysia. The partial least squares method was used for the conceptual framework of the study.

The observed findings indicate a significant positive relationship between top management commitment and CSR, as well all dimensions of GHRM. However, counterintuitively, the relationship between CSR and GHRM was found not to be as significant as expected (except for CSR and green analysis/job description), which can be explained through the emerging perspective that CSR and HRM should be linked.

The findings provide insights as to the nature of GHRM and how it is affected by CSR and top management commitment in an emerging economy – in this particular study, Malaysia. Moreover, the observed results highlight the crucial importance of top management commitment in implementing GHRM practices and CSR efficiently in order to create positive environmental performance.

The authors believe that, to date, no study has explored the links between top management commitment, CSR and GHRM using empirical data from Malaysia, as well as that this research is an important emerging topic for researchers, academicians and practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of the commitment‐ and control‐approaches on the use of competency management, and to investigate whether attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control mediate these effects.

In Study 1, using a survey, employees indicated whether their organization adopted a commitment‐ or a control‐approach towards competency management. Moreover, they rated their own attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, and behaviour. In Study 2 a scenario experiment was conducted in which the authors manipulated the commitment‐ and control‐approaches towards competency management in order to establish causal relations.

Results consistently showed that the use of competency management is higher within a commitment‐ than within a control‐approach. Furthermore, attitude and perceived behavioural control were found to mediate the relationship between the commitment‐approach and the use of competency management.

Future research should include other organizational members, for example (line) managers, to create future insight in the effects of commitment‐ and control‐approaches on the use of competency management.

The results of the studies highlight that a commitment‐oriented approach increases the use of competency management by employees and that a positive employee attitude and perceived behavioural control are of considerable importance when increasing the use of competency management is an organization's primary goal.

The paper gives insight in how to persuade and stimulate employees to use competency management more frequently.

The purpose of the study is to examine the role of top management in effective key account management (KAM) relationships, making a distinction between top management commitment and top management involvement.

The study uses data from 304 suppliers from different sectors to test the research model and hypotheses developed. Data were collected by means of personal interviews. The survey instrument was a structured questionnaire.

Results show that top management commitment positively affects top management involvement. In addition, top management involvement totally mediates the relationship between top management commitment and relationship quality. Finally, relationship quality positively relates to financial performance.

The study focuses on the role of top management in KAM. Future research that considers the top management’s role simultaneously with other internal or external factors would provide a more comprehensive understanding of the antecedents of effective KAM. Future studies can also examine the potential detrimental impact of top management involvement in KAM.

Top managers should get actively involved in KAM. The study provides managers with guidance concerning how top management can have the greatest effect on KAM effectiveness.

The study adds to our understanding of the role of top management in KAM. The study provides an integrative empirical examination of the influence of top management in KAM and offer insights on which ways top management determines KAM success.

Employee absence has been widely acknowledged in recent years to be a growing problem for organisations, including local government organisations. This paper investigates linkages between organisational commitment, absence management policies and absenteeism in local government from three perspectives – those of human resource practitioners, line managers and employees – through a series of semi‐structured interviews and focus group discussions. The conclusion is reached that much employee absence in this sector can be attributed to the adoption of a “compliance”, or transactional approach, to employee commitment by both management and employees, and the absence of shared values between the employees and the organisation (internalised commitment). The implications which this holds for the management of employee absence are also examined.

Examines the associations between ten integrated quality management constructs and the resulting product quality. Analyzes responses from plant managers of 449 auto‐parts firms using stepwise regression. Notes three primary predictors (customer focus, empowerment, and supplier quality management) explaining 26 per cent of variation in product quality. Examines the role of top management commitment in TQM implementation by splitting the sample into firms with high and low top management commitment based on the mean score on this construct. Concludes, first, that firms with high top management commitment produce high quality products despite variations in individual constructs, and, second, that in firms with low top management commitment, four other constructs, i.e. customer focus, supplier quality management, empowerment, and internal quality information usage are primary predictors of product quality.

This paper aims to investigate the corporate-level determinants (i.e. management commitment) of work ability. It also examined whether mid-level contextual variables intensify the relationship between management commitment and the work ability of senior casino dealers.

A three-level hierarchical analysis of data from 432 casino dealers from 16 casinos was performed to determine the proportion of variance in the dependent variable when the explanatory variables were at varying hierarchical levels.

The findings suggest that management commitment has a positive and significant impact on frontline dealers’ work ability. Furthermore, supervisor support and group trust have moderating effects on the relationship between management commitment and dealers’ work ability.

The current study provides important information on how to increase the ability of aging dealer to remain active and learn new skills.

Work ability has received substantial attention from recent studies of human resources because of its close relationship to employee job skills and competencies. However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no conceptual model explains the role of work ability role in promoting and updating human resources management practices and policies.

Organizational commitment and perceived management styles were examined using survey responses from 1418 employees from both public and private sector organizations, operating in Australia. Comparisons between public (n=474) and private (n= 944) sector employees revealed significantly higher levels of commitment amongst private sector employees. These differences were consistent with differences in perceived management styles. The concept of organizational commitment was found to incorporate the notion of “corporate loyalty/citizenship” and the notion of “attachment to the organization”. Management styles (as perceived by respondents) were found to relate to four main sub‐dimensions: (1) the degree of “emphasis on flexibility and adaptation”; (2) the degree of “emphasis on rules and regulations”; (3) the degree of emphasis on “hierarchy and role specialization” and (4) the degree of “work‐group discontinuity/change”. For both sectors, statistical analysis (regressions) revealed that the degree of organizational commitment as well as the extent of loyalty and attachment to the organization were affected positively by perceptions of greater (perceived) emphasis on “flexibility and adaptation” and by lesser (perceived) emphasis on “rules and regulations”. Salient implications of these findings on management practice are discussed. In recent years, a great deal of attention has been invested in identifying the various causes and implications of organizational commitment. The main thrust was to afford reasonable explanations of the development process of organizational commitment defined as the strength of an individual's identification and involvement with an organization. One of the most contended views is that positive organizational commitment, including feelings of affiliation, attachment and citizenship behaviour, tends to improve organizational efficiency and effectiveness by contributing to resource transformations, innovativeness, and adaptability (Williams & Anderson, 1991). As such, organizational commitment has important implications for both individual and organizational outcomes and is central to organizational life. In general, the antecedents of commitment have been grouped into two categories: personal characteristics and situational attributes. However, previous research has not reached any substantial agreement on the precedence of the above characteristics. While some researchers have found (and argued) the prevalence of personal characteristics (Brooks & Seers, 1991) others have tended to emphasise situational effects (Grau et al, 1991), while still others have underlined equal effects of both types of characteristics (O'Reilly et al, 1991). In an attempt to contribute to the research debates and suggestions, the present article examines the potential impact of management styles (as perceived by members) on the degree of organizational commitment. The notion of management style is considered from the organizational standpoint (Burns & Stalker, 1961; Shrader et al, 1989). The article draws on an empirical study focusing on a sample of 1418 public and private sector employees from a variety of industries based in Australia. Management style can significantly influence the degree of workers commitment to organizational values and goals. In general, it has widely been shown and argued that the more flexible and participative management styles can strongly and positively enhance organizational commitment (Gaertner & Nollen, 1989). These styles tend to decrease role stress and thereby significantly increase employee commitment. The organic style of management emphasising flexibility and adaptation (Burns & Stalker, 1961; Gonring, 1991) might provide greater concern for workers as human beings, and for the work organization as a total social and cultural system. The success of this type of management style lies with its flexibility and adaptability to changing conditions while maintaining organizational consistency and continuity. Because of its greater reliance on worker loyalty and trust, this style of management might also be geared to enhance organizational citizenship behaviours (Williams & Anderson, 1991).

Top management commitment is considered a significant factor in improvement programmes, and many papers have been written about the role of top management commitment in implementing a quality management system. However, not considering other management levels’ commitment, such as middle management, may lead to issues in achieving organisational development. Public organisations that work through vertical structures may face a lack of middle management commitment, which might have a negative impact on lower and non-management staff commitment to improvement programmes. In this regard, the purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of middle management’s commitment towards improvement initiatives in public organisations.

Empirical research with a mixed-method design used semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire to explore the current practices of continuous improvement (CI) and examine employees’ views from different management levels of the implications of current improvements in a Saudi public service organisation.

The analysis indicated that the lower managers and non-management staff agree that, after the implementation of the quality management system, the organisation’s middle management showed a lack of commitment to that system. Moreover, this lack of commitment is recognised in the analysis of participants’ views of CI practices recorded in the questionnaire and interviews. This lack of commitment has caused poor employee commitment and thus a lack of problem solving in organisational departments. It is also responsible for a lack of employee involvement, the centralisation of decisions, deficiencies in terms of determining and applying training, inequality between employees and a lack of trust between employees and their managers. These issues could be managed and resolved through middle management and their commitment.

Increasing middle managers’ awareness of the importance of their commitment to improvement initiatives can have an impact on employees’ commitment towards improvement initiatives, especially in those public organisations that have vertical/hierarchical structures. The level of commitment towards the implementation of improvement programmes needs further in-depth analyses to identify which factors influence public organisation leaders’ commitment to improvement programmes.

The results of this study could motivate middle managers in public organisations to review their policies and to facilitate CI initiatives.